A simple "cock-up" resulted in incorrect figures on police numbers being published in December, the government said on Tuesday.

As the government revealed its crime statistics, the Home Office also released revised figures on police numbers, which showed an upward revision on those initially made public in December.

It was originally reported that the national police strength had fallen by seven - when actually the figure had risen by 444.

A "simple cock-up" by the Metropolitan police service (MPS) had led the force to accidentally subtract 451 officers from its ranks following confusing boundary changes and officer secondments, the Home Office said.

A further Home Office investigation into MPS figures found that the figures for the ethnic make-up of the force had been inflated by a combination of incompetence and policy to show more "ethnic officers" than actually existed.

This "inflated figure" threw national figures on the recruitment of ethnic minorities out turning an actual two to three per cent increase into a six per cent hike.

Instead of recruiting the much-trumpted 218 officers from ethnic minorities between March 2000 and September 2000 the Met actually recruited four. It has been revealed that another "simple cock-up" had led to "white/Irish" and "white/other" being included in the ethnic minority count.

The Met also came in for criticism over its ethnic classification system. National police figures on ethnic minority recruits used a nine point classification, the Met a 19 point system - including Greeks and Greek Cypriots - contributing further to "an inflated figure".

The result was a 2.1 per cent downwards figure for black recruits - a move which critics suggested raised the inevitable suspicion that it massaged figures in response to political pressures.